Generals from past torture regimes all over Central America are finding safe haven in the U.S.

Florida, California and a handful of other states are home to hundreds of accused war criminals and torturers from all over Latin America, according to Amnesty International, a human rights group. Other suspected human rights abusers have made their way to the United States from Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Iraq, Sierra Leone, Vietnam, Somalia, Eastern Europe and Afghanistan, sometimes settling in the same communities as their victims. (Torture treatment centers and refugee groups claim there are roughly 500,000 torture survivors nationwide, with an estimated 40,000 in the Washington area.)

Some examples:

Vides Casanova and Garcia received U.S. visas in 1989 after retiring from the military; Garcia was granted political asylum on the grounds that he and his children had been threatened during the war. Vides Casanova was allowed to enter the country despite a 1983 report to the State Department that he was likely "aware of, and for a time acquiesced in, the coverup" of the murders of four American churchwomen.

This is a very graphic article, but it's one that raises an important issue and should be read. Why are we providing safety to these war criminals?

In the new issue of Newsweek, Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman provide new details of Attorney General John Ashcroft's 19 city tour that begins this week to garner public support for the Patriot Act and similar legislation he will ask Congress to pass in the near future. The first paragraph alone makes us shudder.

OVER THE NEXT three weeks, Ashcroft plans to swoop into 18 cities, give speeches, meet local officials and grant select press interviews touting department successes using the law. In a conference call and e-mails last week, sources tell NEWSWEEK, the country’s 94 U.S. attorneys were instructed to help gin up support by convening “community meetings,” writing op-ed articles in local newspapers and ensuring that uniformed cops are seated in bleachers behind the A.G. during his visits.

For more on the tour and the new powers Ashcroft is seeking, go here and here.

Jeanne D'Arc of Body and Soul , "dissenting slightly" with Kevin Drum at Calpundit, explains why Arnold Schwarzenegger's support of the group U.S. English is a problem.

Put aside, for a moment, the fact that "English only" laws -- the focus of the group's work -- don't serve to encourage immigrants to learn English (ESL classes in most places are packed full), but rather to restrict the government's ability to communicate with and provide services to non-English-speaking residents. Beyond that, U.S. English is hardly a benign organization. Its co-founder, John Tanton, founded or helped fund at least 13 anti-immigration groups, three of which the Southern Poverty Law Center lists as "hate groups," including this charming collection of vigilantes. Tanton's no longer associated with U.S. English, but one of their current spokesmen is James Lubinskas, a contributing editor to the neo-Confederate American Renaissance magazine.

Jeanne has lots more.... We agree with her. Arnold should disassociate himself from the group. We're also troubled by Arnold's support for Proposition 187, the 1994 California referendum that resulted in illegal immigrants being denied government benefits.

Right now polls show Arnold and Bustamente are running neck and neck. We agree with Kevin that this issue alone will not cause Arnold to lose since he only needs a small percentage of voters to win. But as a symbolic gesture, his withdrawal from the board of U.S. English would be most welcome.

A California Judge has ordered convicted rapist Andrew Luster to pay . The amount includes compensatory and punitive damages.

Say hello to new blog Public Defender Dude, which as the title implies, is written by a public defender. It's very good. We like that PDdude includes both his thoughts on being a public defender and on the criminal justice system, as well as some details of his cases and workdays.

The rantings of a Public Defender constantly fighting against society's pervasive Police Industrial Complex. Enjoy the unique perspective of one who's life's work is to fight the system through the system....

This blog is not only about the criminal justice system. Us Public Defenders tend to be anti-establishment and have strong views on a variety of subjects, most of these views would be at odds with much of the rest of society, but they would tend to be very logical and well thought out views.

New to us, but not blogtopia (yes, Skippy coined that word,) is Chief Wiggles, who writes from Iraq. The Chief is in the Army National Guard, currently stationed in Iraq. Scott Evensoen, the blog's administrator says,

When the war began, the Chief would send his journal entries to family and friends via email. This got to be quite cumbersome, so while he was back here on hardship leave over his mother’s death, I talked to him about setting up a blog. He agreed if I would administer it for him and thus, Chief Wiggles—Straight from Iraq began.

We especially like the pictures from Iraq. Here's a news article about the blog.

Our blog move to a new hosting company is complete. Some comments from yesterday may not appear as they are still on the old server. Also, from time to time the old version shows up instead of the new because the files are currently on both servers. Once we make sure nothing is missing, we will have the files removed from the first server.

A note about comments: Sometimes they take a long time to post to the servers and we're not sure why. We'll try to figure it out. Also, if you put a url in your comment, you have to use the html code as set out in the comment box. Otherwise it skews the site and we will delete it. Your comment remains, just not the url.

Thanks for your patience.

Okay, we're changing hosting companies again. Supposedly there will not be downtime but it's never gone that smoothly before, so we're a little skeptical. The most frequent upset in the past has been that the newest posts get lost. So if you log on in the next few days and the site shows older posts, it's a temporary glitch and we'll be back.

Our hosting cost is doubling, we use a lot of bandwidth (12 - 15 GB a month) probably because we write ten or more entries a day. If you can chip in, it's much appreciated, the amazon and paypal buttons are on the left.

If we go down entirely over the weekend, just know we'll be back.

Buzzflash says,

If Bush Really Wants to Investigate the Cause of the Largest Blackout in American History, He Should Start with the Vice-President, Tom DeLay and Himself

For example, last night, the President said:

We'll have time to look at it and determine whether or not our grid needs to be modernized. I happen to think it does, and have said so all along."

The truth is,

In June of 2001, Bush opposed and the congressional GOP voted down legislation to provide $350 million worth of loans to modernize the nation's power grid because of known weaknesses in reliability and capacity. Supporters of the amendment pointed to studies by the Energy Department showing that the grid was in desperate need of upgrades as proof that their legislation sponsored by U.S. Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA) should pass. [Roll Call Vote #169, 6/20/01].

Read the whole thing.

Drug checkpoints are illegal. Fake drug checkpoints are not. So says the Colorado Court of Appeals.

Colorado police can set up fake checkpoints in hopes of sniffing out illegal drugs, an appeals court ruled in a case where camouflage-clad officers spied on fans during a bluegrass festival in 2000.

Police at the Telluride festival had posted signs along the road saying, "Narcotics checkpoint, one mile ahead" and "Narcotics canine ahead." Officers wearing camouflage hid on a hill and watched for any people who turned around or appeared to toss drugs out of their windows after seeing the signs. After Stephen Corbin Roth, 60, was pulled over for littering, police found a marijuana pipe and mushrooms while searching his car.

The appeals court said that while drug checkpoints are illegal -- because motorists are stopped at random and without reasonable suspicion of committing a crime -- the discovery of the pipe gave the officers probable cause to stop Roth's vehicle.

Indiana is doing it too. From Fourth Amendment.Com (scroll down to August 12):

More and more editorials are blasting Ashcroft for his July 28 Sentencing Memorandum directing prosecutors to keep tabs on judges who depart downward from the federal sentencing guidelines.

Some of the more recent:

The Asheville Citizen Times calls Ashcroft's memo a a blatant abuse of power.

The Berkshire Eagle says Ashcroft clearly has the 'lock 'em up' mentality and we should be listening to Justice Kennedy's criticism of the sentencing system.

The Lebanon, PA Daily News wonders if Ashcroft slept through his law school classes.

For a comprehensive look at Ashcroft's assault on the federal courts, check out Mark Allenbaugh's commentary at Findlaw.

Patrice Lumumba Ford is one of the defendants in the Portland 7 alleged terrorism case (Mike Hawash is another.) Ashcroft is seeking to prevent New York lawyer Stanley Cohen from representing him-- based on a secret affidavit that claims Cohen has a conflict due to his prior representation of Sheik Mohamed Abdirahman Kariye, the prayer leader at the Islamic Center of Portland, who is also known as Masjed As-Saber.

The defense has filed a motion for access to the sealed affidavit, demanding to know what evidence there is to link Kariye to the alleged terror cell plot. A hearing will be held August 22 on the Government's motion to bar Cohen from the case.

The government's motion claims Kariye provided money and other support to the local Muslims who allegedly tried to travel to Afghanistan to fight against the allied forces that overthrew the country's Taliban regime. Kariye also helped start a Muslim charity in the United States the Global Relief Foundation that the government accuses of funding terrorism.

Despite these allegations, the government has not charged Kariye with any terrorism-related crimes.

Our view: How can Cohen respond to the allegations without knowing what facts or mistruths the Government is relying upon? Lawyers should not be barred from representation based on secret evidence.

14 year old Lionel Tate cries as Judge imposes life sentence

Lionel Tate is the youngest person in the U.S. to be sentenced to life in prison. At 12, he killed a 6 year old playmate while wrestling with her.

Lionel's mother turned down a deal for him to get three years in a juvenile facility, thinking he would be acquitted. He was tried and convicted as an adult, and sentenced to life. He is now 16.

Lionel lost his appeal. Jeb Bush turned down his first clemency petition because he had had behavioral problems in jail. His second clemency petition is now under consideration. The Warden at his prison supports it and says he has made marked improvements. So do his lawyers:

''We're proud as can be of someone who was in a terrible situation,'' said Fort Lauderdale attorney Richard Rosenbaum, noting that the teenager with a reputation for ''a big mouth'' and ''talking back'' is now earning A's and B's on his report card and wants to pursue a career in the culinary arts.

Lionel has a lot of support. His backers have brought his cause to the Pope and the Human Rights Commission in Geneva. The NAACP is supporting him. So is a police group in East Orange, NJ.

In the end, Lionel's future will be decided by one man--Jeb Bush--with advice from a three member Board of Executive Clemency. Bush has until September to decide whether Lionel gets a clemency hearing.

Here's more about Lionel and his case.

Westchester County, New York has been ordered to pay $2,500.00 to a pedophile clown for violating his first amendment rights by blocking him from performing in a park at the Playland Amusement Park in Rye.

We reported the details of the case back in December, here.